stay foolish

unpacking the Fool archetype

*Pre-essay Note*: I recently rebranded my substack from Mind Mine to Isabel Unraveled. You can now find my writing by typing in read.isabelunraveled.com into your browser. I’ll be writing more about this soon. For now, if it looks a little different or takes you to a new link—that’s why! All the old links should still work, though. A new era is upon us… Now for my essay:

I like to pull a Tarot card from time to time as a way to reconnect with the archetypal energies and reflect on what feels most alive in me. I recently pulled the Fool card for the first time—and the description struck me. I suppose I was expecting a series of warnings and cautions about being foolish, about all the trouble you could get in by letting yourself be a fool. But I found something different entirely: a thoughtful reflection on the benefits of folly. The profound gains you can collect by being essentially naïve and not expecting yourself to know what you’re doing before you start.

“If a man were to persist in his folly, he would become wise.” — William Blake

We are often warned of the dangers of naïveté, of foolishness, of being too trusting. These are important warnings! They usually come from people who love us and want to keep us safe.

The dangers of being the Fool, are, well, being a fool: walking into dangerous situations assuming they will be harmless and not noticing ‘red flags’ out in the world because you’re operating in a frame of trusting, open-hearted curiosity and wonder—much like a child!

But I would say that we don’t spend enough time pondering the benefits of being the Fool; which are essentially the light side of these “risks” we are introduced to early on. The essence of the Fool is his ability to be like a child, to be rooted in wonder, in curiosity, and to figure out where the limitations of what he can do actually is by trying new things, instead of walking around paranoid, assuming he should be more careful than he needs to be.

The brilliance of the Fool is in his lack of inhibition, in his belief that things are always going to work out for him, that he doesn’t need to worry.

playing the Fool

I’ve been reading Ina Garten’s memoir, “Be Ready When the Luck Happens” which I am currently obsessed with. I keep telling everyone that she has blueprinted the life I desire with a few minor tweaks (you can watch me talk about how much I adore the book on Twitter here or TikTok here). One of the reasons I believe that Ina Garten has had such a dreamy, fun, almost fairy-tale-like life is because she has given herself permission to be the Fool. She leaped at opportunities even when they were not ‘practical’ or ‘strategic.’ She followed her curiosity and inspiration even when people told her she couldn’t (or shouldn’t) do something. And above all, she trusted herself and her own sense of the way things—especially her life!—should be. She did not assume there was some other, Wiser authority outside of herself that she needed to trust above her intuition. She simply moved towards what inspired her and believed she could do anything she set her mind to. And she pretty much did!

Ina tells a story in the book of how her now-husband offered to take her out on a date when she was 16, and she suggested they go to a bar, despite being underage with no plan of how to get in. She remarks that she simply didn’t think it would be an issue! They did not, in fact, get into the bar, and he looked at her confused when she was unable to present an ID when prompted to prove she was of legal age at the entrance. She later speaks of how her husband saw her naïveté and apparent unawareness of consequences as what was most charming about her:

Many years later, I asked Jefferey what he could have possibly seen in that clueless girl who didn’t even know how to get into a bar with a fake ID. Apparently, our date, disastrous as it was, awakened a feeling. He saw that I plowed full speed ahead and didn’t recognize a big problem—say the blunder?—until it was right in front of me. “I thought you needed someone to take care of you.” He told me. And happily, he wanted to be that someone.

Critically: embodying the Fool energy also means being open to receiving guidance and protection from others, so you don’t need to hold all of the worry around the potential risks and consequences of your actions yourself!

Ina’s attitude was: everything is going to work out for me, and I don’t need to worry about anything other than what is literally not working in front of me, in reality. This allowed her to focus on (and solve) actual problems instead of mind-invented problems that would only distract her from trying to do the things she felt compelled to do — exactly the attitude of the Fool!

we find what we look for

Alongside Ina Garten’s book, I’ve been reading Sallie Nichols’ Jung and Tarot—an Archetypal Journey, about the different archetypes represented in the Tarot deck, and in the Fool chapter was a quote I found so interesting:

“In Greece, it was believed that keeping a fool about the premises warded off the evil eye.”

What is so revealing about this belief is that it indicates to me that something about the Fool literally believing that evil was not around (by being ignorant to the potential for evil to be around) helped others believe that their ignorance might actually keep evil out. Given that we find what we look for in the world, and that attuning ourselves to something—even what we don’t want to find it—makes us more predisposed to finding and attracting that thing, makes the Fool’s attitude even more compelling to embody. In other words: if our minds create the reality we (psychically) live in, having someone around living in a blissful, ecstatic reality with no concerns might just help others experience more of that same thing!

what the fool is & is not

The fool is a curious player, not a strategic planner or thinker. The Fool indulges his imagination and curiosity and gifts. The Fool follows intrigue, wanders into places he “doesn’t belong” and exists there openly. The Fool treats others like they aren’t threats. The Fool treats the world like it wants to help him, like it is conspiring with him to succeed, to find what he is looking for, to Become. This predisposition of trusting faithfulness and wonder—of simply looking for the best, looking for the good—is enough, in many cases, to attract it.

When we watch children prance around, unaware of the dangers of the world, their innocence and folly still preserved, we see what we could be like if the world didn’t feel like one big threat to us, to our ego, to our security. We see them wander through the world, open, giggling, curious. We see them testing reality and learning through its feedback, instead of their own perceived limitations and fears. We see what our spirit could be like, uninhibited by ego and fear. We see the Fool, embodied.

The Fool from The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck

As I learn more about this archetype, I am realizing that so much of what we seek is permission to return to being The Fool, without the cognitive weight of self-consciousness tainting our ability to hope, dream, wonder and wander through life with openness. Of course, there is a place for caution, a place for strategy, a place for intention—but there is also a place for folly, for raw, uninhibited wonder and perhaps even a little naïveté. The kind of naïveté that gets us into adventures that we might not have embarked on if we knew of the trials and tribulations that we would find there, but are glad to have journeyed through once we have completed them.

we begin any journey as the Fool

The Fool is the very first card in the Tarot deck: the beginning of the archetypal journey, associated with the number 0, representing its infinite potential, the place where the deck begins. The Fool journeys into the unknown, absorbing the wisdom of the other archetypes as he goes. The Fool is willing to begin a journey he is not yet equipped for, simply because he is compelled towards it. He becomes ready by starting. The Fool is our raw spirit, before it is tainted by fear or inhibition. It is who we are when we are not ‘trying’ to be anything, to be anyone. It is who we are when we are simply creating, exploring and existing from the heart, from a sense of purity and innocence that is harder to access as we journey away from the innocence of childhood and get closer to maturity.

But we can recapture and embody the Fool energy again by releasing fear and reclaiming wonder—by embarking on the adventures that feel compelling, even if we don’t feel quite ready for them. And sometimes, it doesn’t hurt to pull the card and be reminded that this energy already exists within us, and always has. And that, as William Blake reminds us, it is through persisting in our folly that we become wise.

related essays you might enjoy: on being ready, reclaim your nature, becoming yourself is a process of reduction, just show up, don’t let your ideas rot

If you enjoyed this foray into the Fool archetype, you might also enjoy my free archetype guide, diving into the four key archetypes of masculinity—King, Warrior, Magician and Lover:

Explore my 1-1 coaching focused on clarifying what you truly want and moving towards it consciously, with a healthy balance of wisdom and folly:

Download my free daily journalling guide to dive into your own inner world:

Begin your creative journey with my creativity course, Creative Liberation. Learn more about why I made the course and what’s inside of it here:

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